One Meeting More or Less

In which our Hero decides to attend a meeting off-site

Someone teased me about my life lately being mostly work lately, and I feel a little sensitive about that. I do know that it’s a dominating theme, especially with the standard year-end rush, but I also think that I prioritize it relatively okay. I do keep myself busy but I don’t think I’m a workaholic, and I think my priorities are relatively clear and sane. Supported by a lunch with Willow a while ago where she was laughingly telling me that her mother thought I was incredibly busy despite the fact that Willow could always grab me to talk for an hour or two whenever she wanted just by phoning.

I know that I’ve been letting work tip the balance a lot more lately, but that’s as much a function of the new project starting up, and even without the temporal anomalies in our backwards project, kicking off a project is almost always a busy and time-crunched endeavour and planning and funding the next year is another big crunch. So I’d decided I’d sneak out of a set of meetings to have lunch with my Mouse.

It’s not as crazy as it seems. I had this insight, way back at the start of my career, that seemed like ludicrous mockery at the start but has gradually grown into a bedrock awareness: The more important you are percieved to be, the more meetings you have to be at. Correspondingly, the less people expect you to be at one place or another. (As a junior employee, I attempted to exploit this by working from home while office and client site assumed I was at the other location, and got a good two weeks in before I was hauled in and scolded for meeting all my deadlines from the wrong unsupervised location)

So in this case, I was relying on the low priority of the project and my peripheral involvement, plus my working from a different office, to provide me with that conflicting cover that would allow me time to meet up with my cousin and maybe even get a little work done. Except that some VP somewhere decided that the meeting was interesting, and invited a few other executive types, and suddenly the stupid informational meeting that didn’t need me was now political (and thought it still didn’t need me, now I needed it for appearances sake).

And now a dilemma. Do I cancel on the Mouse and take care of my work or do I indulge in my moment of gratuitous leisure and neglect the obligations of my office? Honestly, postponing would have been the best thing to do. But I miss her. And work has been stressful and this would be relaxing.

Conceding a little to reality, I did text her to let her know that I couldn’t stay out as long as I’d planned. So we decided we’d meet for a coffee, and then when she got there sooner than I expected, I dragged her to McDonalds so I could eat before I went back into the trenches. It was a short visit, but I was really glad to see her, and for the break, and she… well…

At one point, I looked up at her, between chicken nuggets, and she was looking at me with this expression that… I don’t know what to do with. That little girl loves me back, possibly even as much as I love her, and in that moment it was there, in her face. A look of repletion, of full and present joy in the person you’re watching. A look I know from my own face, when I’ve watched her be, eating, or studying at her computer, or just crawling and babbling at my feet.

I wish I had something more profound to finish this story with. All I can think of is that I’m so very glad I didn’t pass up the chance to see her, but that sounds kind of pompous when what I feel is humble. So I’ll end with no ending at all.